En Route To The Grand Library
by FiddlingCrispo
Summary: One-shot glance at younger Hyuuga/Aya-tan, both of whom were then carefree juveniles. Seasoned with romping, talking, plus a helping of Ayanami’s internal struggles


**En Route To The Grand Library**

**Hints:**

One-shot glance at younger Hyuuga/Aya-tan, both of whom were then carefree juveniles (at least, Hyuuga was!).

Romping, talking, plus a helping of Ayanami's internal struggles and angst en route to a library=))

**Disclaimer:**

All in all I'm no owner of the characters; the story is mine, but the characters and certain personalities are created and copyrighted by Yuki Amemiya&Yukino Ichihara(I've just looked up their names on Wiki, so there won't be any problem about that.)

**Extra Info:**

I kinda depicted the teenage Ayanami as a quiet, bookish and serious lad; he may look as cold and indifferent as his adult self but he has concerns and troubles and doubts and angst from the inside...I reckon even for the exceptional Chief of Staff, being a teenager is just something like that.

Please drop comments and tell me if you appreciate it:-))

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'Aaaaya-taaaaaaaan! Could you pleeeease just stop reading that stuff and catch up?'

The effect of the dragging, capricious intonation was quite exceptional. Hyuuga grinned to himself as he stopped in his track and turned around, amused at the sight of the passers-by who were throwing curious and rather skeptical glances toward the black-haired boy and then around at random, undoubtedly expectant to locate a potential responder and to see what sort of person could go with such a ridiculous nickname.

For a few seconds there was no sign of a stir amongst the throng, but Hyuuga, who had stationed himself tiptoed onto the pavement, had beheld the target he was awaiting- a tall, slender, ascetic-looking youth, clad in a long dark uniform and clutching a heavy volume to his front. The instant their eyes met, Hyuuga registered the cold exasperation in those narrowed amethyst eyes, and the grin on his face widened to an ear-to-ear fashion.

Ayanami slid through the crowd and sped up into a hurried stride, and within seconds was with his bespectacled companion once more, his soft hair windswept and dazzling with the hue of heated platinum under the glowing autumn sun.

'What the heck were you wailing for?' he hissed as he glowered down at the grinning boy.

'Wailing?' Hyuuga choked out an unabashed laugh, 'I wasn't wailing, Aya-tan! I tugged you with decent manners in the first place, but you were too book-centred to react! And so I called, and it paid off!'

Ayanami made no effort to contradict. Hyuuga's capability of dramatising and rambling over trifles was evidently too much for his own limited sense of humour.

'What do you want with me anyway?' he proceeded, 'I know you wouldn't call me for nothing.'

'What do I want with elite Aya-tan! Nothing in earnest,' Hyuuga initiated a playful poke at the enormous volume Ayanami was carrying, 'I just dislike you lagging behind for reading this stuff when you ought to focus on your footsteps. What if you collide into a pillar, or a telephone box, or bounce into some conceited ladies-Ouch! What for!' for the platonic-haired youth had thwacked the narrator's head with the book.

'I won't make such blunders, stupid.' Ayanami's voice sounded as cold and restrained as ever, though meanwhile he grasped the arm of a now positively howling Hyuuga and pushed him away from a towering post ahead that he was bound to crush his face into(Hyuuga had been looking up at Ayanami instead of at his own feet as they walked and conversed).

'Good grief, Aya-tan, you've got no idea how painful that was,' Hyuuga clutched his bruised head with both hands and feigned a harrowing sob in his throat, 'Thou shalt be accused of abusing underage pupils.'

'What a stupendous treat.'

'And once you're sentenced, I'll take your place at the Academy.'

'You're too immature to be in my current position though.'

'Not for long, Aya-tan, not for long. I'll grow taller and would come of age. And when you get discharged I'd surely have towered over you both in height and in vocation.'

'Utopian.'

Hyuuga scratched at the left temple of his navy sunglasses, temporarily lost for words. He'd witnessed enough of Ayanami's lack of humour and he wondered whether he, trying all his best and in all aspects, could ever kindle one tiniest spark of the senior's exuberance, if there was indeed some.

Quietly they marched together for a few more seconds. Then unable to stomach the awkward silence, Hyuuga broke it.

'I feel tired, Aya-tan.'

Ayanami swept a sideways glance at his black-haired companion, frowning slightly.

'Not that far.' He said quietly, 'get out of this town and then we'll be there.'

_Wasn't that a consolation_, Hyuuga chuckled to himself as he sensed a slim proportion of his confidence coming back.

'You didn't tell me we've got to walk though,' he yawned, 'I wouldn't come along otherwise…'

'I didn't even ask you to.' Ayanami resumed a steeling glare, 'you just stick to me wherever I go.'

'True.' Hyuuga composed back his mischievous smirk, 'because I feel like protecting Aya-tan, do I not? Beauties are supposed to be cherished at any rate.'

Ayanami's fingers twitched rather convulsively over the spine of his hardcover; for fragments of a second he wondered if he could suppress that instinctive urge of thwacking his jokey companion again, and then realised with a mixture of relief and resentment that he had at all costs managed to refrain himself.

Endurance, as Ayanami had assumed, was quite a bit of an excess for intimate relationship. He suppose if a close friend of his could rant about anything to him with indecent openness, he could in return opt to listen to them if he liked or else offer the narrator a solid free punch if he didn't; under this circumstance, hesitation or polite tolerance does not necessarily rank high, and that's what makes intimate friends special amongst all other acquaintances.

Following this logic, Ayanami recounted his doings and concluded that he had certainly taken it for granted that Hyuuga was a rightful candidate for an intimate friend. The thought chilled him somewhat, for never before had he seriously considered his attitudes towards this jokey happy-go-lucky junior;

Hyuuga was just Hyuuga, that was what it was and it hadn't occurred to Ayanami to address the boy by anything else-

a common friend? It would be impertinent to deny that to some extent;

a bosom friend and faithful henchman? It may look like so but Ayanami was by no means the sort to admit to such affectionate existence;

a will-be subordinate and footman? It did fit but Ayanami wasn't delighted to imagine to himself what Hyuuga would think if his beloved senior put up a stern face and boss him around.

And then what was lurking behind that singular motive to stop hitting this lollipop lover and treat him like an equal? Was he, Ayanami, young military elite with the external aura of a lofty glacier, really determined to shed the delicate mental balance held between the pair of them and to conjure a substitute that might turn out unreliable and unmanageable?

To stay aloof from Hyuuga, the sole person who was not awed in front of him like others, but always landed unceremoniously upon him and rained him with equally unceremonious jokes? Certainly it was a tempting idea for a quiet life, but he could not guarantee that the aftereffects would not be affiliated with excessive dullness.

Despite his marvellous powers, he, Ayanami, was just as mundane as anyone else- he, Ayanami, like others, feared loneliness and craved company. The prospect of remaining totally solitary was unwelcome, even outrageous, especially when he'd been heartily used to suffering constant showers of playful teasing and loud unabashed giggles from-

'Aya-tan, why are you so freakin' subject to lagging behind?'

'What…?'

Hyuuga was standing almost ten feet ahead and was looking back wearing his typical grimace, though this time he didn't wait for Ayanami to catch up. Instead he retreated to where Ayanami stood and looked up intently into his face.

'Aya-tan, if you don't hurry up we won't be back in time for my afternoon lollipops!' Hyuuga curled his lips in faking displeasure, 'and I reckon I'd force an extra-sized one down your throat because you look all funny and drained. What's up, anything troubling you? Thinking about beautiful girls?'

Ayanami was on the verge of answering 'I was thinking about you' when he realised admitting would be stupid and embarrassing, and hastily reining it, he simply muttered a word of denial, and lengthened his strides, leaving a crestfallen and bewildered Hyuuga trotting at his wake.

Maybe he could give it a rest and simply accept what he currently kept with Hyuuga; maybe he could try some means of reform, try to be open with the boy who saw him as a true friend; he could opt to control his short temper, or to set it loose like before without feeling guilty, and to give himself in to the happiness and prosperity of the bespectacled little rascal; and maybe there would be more, more than he deserved, more of those that he ought to hold close to himself and for which he ought to act like a gardener and sentinel.

'Hey, Aya-tan! Don't you just stop dead and then bounce into life; are you right in your mind!!!???'

'I perfectly am; and now you are the one that lags behind. No lollipops for this.'

'You cunning Aya-tan! Was that a teasing??? Since when did you ever learn to tease?'

'It's not teasing, it's _fact_.'

'You're a lecturer and not a joker, Aya-tan!'

'No, I'm not. I'm Ayanami, that's all.'

'Narcissist!'

**END**

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**After:**

So this is my second tribute to the pair of Hyuuga/Aya-tan; I thought a sketch of the two as underages would be quite interesting, and so here's the output!

I know in the canon Hyuuga is taller than Aya-tan, but it might not be so if we dated back to their boyhoods because Aya-tan was and is more mature:-))), and that's why I fancied loading Aya-tan with that adolescent angst lollll…he could be depressed and sentimental from the inside, everyone could.

Anyway, thank you so much for reading, and do please drop your comments!


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